Travis DGMC Airman plays role in wounded warrior's recovery

Published June 10, 2011
By Nick DeCicco
60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE,Calif. -- If he waited a split second more, Tech. Sgt. James Davis would be dead.

On a predawn mission to retrieve two Army pilots whose helicopter crashed April 23 in an Afghanistan valley known as a Taliban stronghold, bullets from the gun of a Taliban fighter ripped through the floor of the HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter.

The rounds punctured a trail leading away from Sergeant Davis, who seconds earlier slid from turning off the hoist to drop two parajumpers into a small area on a mountainside into his seat at .50-caliber machine guns.

His right leg stuck out as he moved across the aircraft. That's where the bullet struck him, entering the flight engineer's right calf, with the exit wound near his tibia.

"Seconds earlier, I would have been dead," said Sergeant Davis. " (The enemy was) They were in a blind spot. They were directly below. There's nothing you can do."

Due to Sergeant Davis' wound, the Pave Hawk made way to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. En route, the sergeant and Staff Sgt. William Gonzalez, a gunner deployed to the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, put a tourniquet on the wounded warrior just above the exit wound.

"I was fading out," said Sergeant Davis, who said his field of vision was narrowing and blurring due to the loss of blood.

As soon as Sergeant Gonzalez tightened the tourniquet and locked it into place, Sergeant Davis said his vision began to return. The gunner then wrapped the wound in gauze to absorb blood.

Sergeant Gonzalez learned to apply tourniquets at a Tactical Combat Casualty Care training in Lake Tahoe. Coincidentally, members of David Grant USAF Medical Center, said Lt. Col. Dustin Zierold, 60th Surgical Operations Squadron, in an email.

Within 10 minutes, the crew returned to Craig Joint Theater Hospital at Bagram AB. Despite being alerted to Sergeant Davis' condition, the hospital staff sent no one to greet the arriving Pave Hawk, so Sergeant Gonzalez, Capt. Louis Nolting, the Pave Hawk's co-pilot, and a Marine lieutenant carried the wounded flight engineer into the emergency room.

Once there, Sergeant Davis faced a battery of tests, including a computed tomography scan and other X-rays. Work to save his limb was done in the trauma unit of the Bagram hospital, where Maj. (Dr.) Michael Howard, orthopedic hand surgeon, deployed from the 60th MSGS at Travis, did several of his initial washouts and stabilizations downrange, said Lt. Col. (Dr.) Jeffrey Bui, 60th Medical Surgical Operations Squadron.

"It's pretty gratifying to know we've got great people down range," said Colonel Bui. "It definitely is a team effort, no doubt."

Sergeant Davis suffered nerve and vascular injuries as well as bone and soft tissue, said Colonel Bui.

Sergeant Davis' next stop was Landstuhl Air Base, Germany, where he received a fasciotomy to relieve pressure from swelling in his leg, as well as two other surgeries.

Days later, he returned stateside, making a one-night stop at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., before getting on a C-17 Globemaster III en route for DGMC. DGMC was selected for its capabilities and its location being convenient to his home station.

Since arriving at Travis, Sergeant Davis has had several procedures to help the swelling improve and wash the wound. A skin graft was performed May 16 by Maj. (Dr.) Christopher Gold, 60 MSGS plastic surgeon. The skin graft was successful.

Seeing such a string of individuals with Travis ties is fairly uncommon, said Colonel Bui.

"Usually, you're seen by multiple providers from different hospitals throughout the Air Force," he said. "It brings home that it's a pretty small world for us."

Sergeant Davis' family joined him from Kadena Air Base, Japan, during the second week of his stay. He has since moved out of the hospital and into the Travis Fisher House, a facility where loved ones can stay while wounded warriors receive treatment.

"The nurses and the docs took great care of him," said Katharine Davis, the flight engineer's wife.

Sergeant Davis said Tracy Black, the Air Force Recovery Care coordinator for California has been invaluable to his recovery.

"The hospital staff here has been amazing," said Sergeant Davis. "They have great bed-side manner. I never had to worry about a thing."

The long-term prognosis for Sergeant Davis is hazy, with the patient himself admitting doctors are unwilling to make any definitive predictions.

"These types of injuries involve a long recovery," said Colonel Bui. "For him, it will be a mixture of time and rehab to see what type of function will return."

For being injured in the line of duty, Sergeant Davis received a Purple Heart.

Yet when he thinks back to that morning in the valley, he says he was "just doing my job and got hurt."

Behind his round glasses, his eyes begin to well up as he talks about how being wounded took him out of action.

"It really tore me up," he said. "I didn't care about the leg. I really wanted to help my guys. That was the hardest thing -- that I couldn't complete the mission."